"We allow students, both female and male, to carry a small bag," Assistant Principal Tindyl Rund says. "It can hold pencils, a calculator, ChapStick — we showed the students several examples. We have termed them 'hand-size.' "It seems to me there are things a girl needs to have with her.
December 11, 2006
"We have overcrowding in our school... Purses were banging into people in our hallways."
Banning purses in school:
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19 comments:
Do education bureaucrats self-select for stupidity, or does it come from working in a union shop for a lifetime?
Educrat Morons: nature, or nurture?
Purses should be banned. Kids might be carrying cupcakes in 'em.
We all have too much stuff and our kids have way, way too much stuff.
I'm not inclined to disagree with Pogo because in general I think you're right, but when I drop my kids off at school (one each at elementary, middle and high school) it looks like an infantry batallion getting ready to go 50 clicks.
MM: I'm much more afraid they might be packing hardened stale rice cakes.
I was all set to make a deadly-serious post here, but MM and IR have shamed me out of it.
SteveR-
The problem is that this kind of education administration overkill is rampant and hilarious at the same time. It affects peoples lives, and not in a good way, and is yet blatantly silly.
What's their goal? Reduce weapons in school. How do they achieve it? Remove the purses. How many school shooters have been high school girls, anyway?
My daughter had horrendous periods, painful enough that she'd pass out, and not exactly a scheduled event. This kind of thing attacks basic human dignity for girls. I am not female, so cannot speak for the gender, but Jesus Christ on roller skates, do schools feel they have to enact every stupid thing that comes to mind? Is every principal and school board now required to take crazy pills?
Damn it all, I'd laugh, too, if I thought this were a minor blip in an otherwise sane environment. Instead, it's more evidence of the sinkhole our schools have become.
Of course there are things that a girl needs to have with her... and we are not talking about makeup. Things that you can't stuff in a backpack because they'll get mangled and become useless.
I was going to say the administrators strike me as idiots, but they haven't banned purses outright, just larger ones that, apparently, become inadvertent bludgeons. A smaller bag should do the job. When I was in high school I had a small bag that I kept inside my backpack on top of my books.
The girl who is worried about leaving her MP3 player in her locker should leave it at home. My kids' school doesn't allow the students to bring any electronic devices at all. I suppose in a high school that would be difficult to enforce, but it's probably worth a shot.
Pogo, Your point is well taken, I should really blame parents (like me) who allow the kids too much..
Schools also require more stuff than they used to and now days they don't have lockers. The reasons are "security and safety", two words that will get grandma strip searched and cupcakes banned.
it looks like an infantry batallion getting ready to go 50 clicks.
Amen! And they're REQUIRED to have so much stuff, and carry it back and forth, every day (no enclosed, private lockers). God forbid you don't send in snow-pant jumpers etc. when there's an inch of snow on the ground, or the kid loses recess (this is a true requirement where my kid goes).
I'll be dead by then, but it sure would be interesting to see if there's a spike in back problems when my son's generation hits their '50s and '60s.
They briefly banned bags at my high school way back when, during the first year of forced busing for deseg purposes, when tensions were running high. Girls had to go to one of the nurse's offices to retrieve tampons when they had their periods. Everyone, therefore, "knew," and it really was an indignity. ("I need a hall pass." "Why?" "To go to the nurse's office." You get the picture.) It was also both disruptive and ... well ... untimely.
That policy lasted about month. Too long.
A purse is an essential part of any outfit. I would have taken this like a stake to the heart.
So, the schools are overcrowded, and the solution is to get rid of purses? Backpacks might have weapons in them so the solution is to ban backpacks? Does anyone involved in making education policy at the state and federal level actually look at crap like this?
Private school is looking better and better.
Many commenters note that school administrators are prone to adopt mindless policies such as this purse ban, or the cupcake fatwa also highlighted by Ann today. But no one bothers to inquire why school administrators can be counted on to come up with one dumb "policy" after another. Not all school administrators were born to be dingbats, but they invariably seem to end up that way. Why?
The answer: as every parent knows, overexposure to kids is an Idiocy Inducing Phenonmenon that results in Infantilized Behaviours. Why can't the cupcake-and-purse banners figure that out? Did they flunk sociology? Since there is no changing the Idiocy Inducing nature of kids, the only solution is to require school administrators to attend special after-school Sensitivity Training Seminars and Self-Criticism Sessions, taught by their would-be charges. Only low-fat cottage cheese and iceberg lettuce will be served. The objective is to get the administrators to figure out that they're supposed to be the adults in the system. Good luck to one and all.
guns don't kill people. purses kill people.
I said it first!
Right, Derve! So do long, thin cylindrical objects with points (fine or medium)!
Cupcake fatwa.
Heh heh ... good one.
The schools in my county/region briefly required clear backpacks and bags. (Similar to posting posters of eyeballs! We're watching you and your contents!)
That lasted no time at all...as *everyone* was embarassed having to look at tampons, pads, and bottles of Midol.
Fear of lawsuits yes, but also blame really stupid whiny other parents who complain and whine and cajole the site based decision making council until they are worn down and pass stupid regulations.
I want to chime in and say I've been chuckling about cupcake fatwa all day. What a great punk rock song title.
The ban won't last very long. Pretty soon they'll be saying, “This is something we hadn’t fully thought through, frankly.”
I thought they have those in the women's bathroom.
"Not all school administrators were born to be dingbats, but they invariably seem to end up that way. Why?"
Certainly one reason, as another commenter noted, is Fear of Getting Sued (or FOGS for short, as in it fogs up their brains). But another reason is that once teachers become administrators, they ascend to their ivory tower and experience a profound disconnect from the real world. Part of the answer? Administrators Must Teach. If these people actually had to 1) spend time in a classroom and 2) live under the rules that they make, I think we'd see a lot less idiocy from on high. Keeping good teachers in the classroom (instead of "promoting" them to nonteaching positions) and making sure that bad teachers don't get in a position of authority over good teachers would be a great step toward solving the problem.
(The "having to live under their own rules" idea would also do well if applied to Congress--i.e. having to buy the same health care we do instead of having their own special plan.)
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